like pearls on a string
by Zayz
Summary: McAbby. "The days and the years are piling up on each other, one after the other, like pearls on a string, and he has to wonder how long he can go on this way." R&R?


A/N: Now, this story is kind of a gigantic experiment – because before now, I wrote exclusively for Tony and Ziva. However, Abby and McGee are just so adorable together that I wanted to delve into that pairing a little, even if it's not my comfort zone. After playing catch-up with McAbby moments on YouTube, and finding a noticeable lack of in-character McAbby stories on this site, I simply had to try. So bear with me here: I'm a McAbby virgin.

The story you're about to read is basically a series of vignettes describing "fringe moments" from season one onwards – moments that are alluded to/missing from the series, or moments we've seen on the show (some more specific than others) told through a more romantic lens. Some moments are simply "missing scenes" of my own invention.

Really hope you like this, then, and please be sure to review when you're through!

* * *

**like pearls on a string  
By: Zayz**

Abby: McGee is a very capable investigator, but when it comes to matters of the heart, he can be a bit naïve.  
Ziva: Are you speaking from personal experience?  
Abby: That's classified.

- 8.20, "Moonlighting"

* * *

It starts with a voice on the phone and a conversation with Tony about tattoos on buttocks.

He can't explain what it is, exactly, about her voice that gets to him. Maybe it's the pleasant alto timbre, maybe the lilt with which she talks. Or maybe it was just the sly tone in which she said 'hello' – like she was already interested, without knowing anything about him.

Whatever it was, it catches his attention – which, of course, catches Tony's attention and starts the conversation about buttock tattoos. Which, in turn, keeps his attention, because what kind of girl could inspire a conversation like that?

True, he is the cut-and-dry type, with few relationships to act as precedents – but there's something about this girl that makes him the kind of bold he associates with macho men in movies. And he doesn't even know the color of her eyes yet.

* * *

In a few keystrokes on the computer, he finds the phone number for the lab. His common sense says to save it for a rainy day, but his instinct disagrees. For once.

He's not sure what possesses him to do it, but he writes the number on a Post-It and feeds it into his phone. His thumb lingers over the call button, hesitating. This is her work number, for goodness sake. She could be busy. She could be creeped out. She could tell Tony, who would laugh at him for days if he knew.

But a sudden recklessness washes over him and he presses the call button. Two rings later: "This is Abby Sciuto."

He swallows down a lump the size of a grapefruit.

"Hi. Abby. This is Tim McGee."

"Oh." She sounds surprised, but not unpleasantly. "Hi, McGee."

The room seems to run out of oxygen. "So…um…I was wondering…would you like to maybe go out for lunch or something?"

A pause. Then—

"When and where did you have in mind?"

At the very least, she doesn't sound scared. The lump comes back to his throat, but he ignores it.

"Wherever, whenever you're free."

"How about…tomorrow afternoon, at the Italian restaurant down the block?"

The lump in his throat seems to have spawned monarch butterflies that fly down his esophagus and into his stomach.

"Yeah. Sure. That would…that would be great."

"Great." He can hear her smile through the word. "Come down to my lab at one and we'll go."

"Okay."

"Bye, McGee."

"Bye, Abby."

She hangs up first; he remains on the line, listening to the drone of the monotone ring, completely in shock.

He just asked out a girl. To lunch. Whom he doesn't even know.

It's either the stupidest or the smartest thing he's ever done – and though his money's on the former, he finds himself hoping beyond hope that it's the latter.

* * *

It is with Tony's solemn expression during the conversation about buttock tattoos emblazoned in his memory that McGee applies a temporary tattoo of the Chinese symbol for 'joy' on his rear end in the NCIS bathroom ten minutes before his date with Abby. It is out-of-character to say the least, he knows, but Tony looked like he meant business about bizarre body art and after an insomniac night and most of the morning mentally preparing for this date, McGee just wants to impress her somehow, in case anything…gets that far.

Honestly, standing there in the bathroom stall with his pants pooled around his ankles and the tattoo paper wet on his skin, he isn't sure which is worse: actually applying a temporary tattoo to his rear end, or considering the possibility that it would even come up during the lunch date.

He hasn't even met her, and she's already making him crazy.

Grimly satisfied with his tattoo, he leaves the bathroom and makes his way to the lab. Better to be early and with her longer than standing in the bathroom wondering if he should have gotten another tattoo for the other side.

* * *

He arrives at the lab and he's not sure what he was expecting, but he sure wasn't expecting the woman waiting for him.

She's like something out of a poster for a grunge band, with her black hair and her shiny boots and her skull t-shirt. He does a double-take and stops dead at the door, taking in her details, the metal music playing in the background. If she's a grunge band poster girl, he is Bambi, all wide eyes and confusion. Her smile – big, friendly, and obviously amused, albeit decorated with black lipstick – is the only thing that invites him to take a few ginger steps towards her.

"Hi," she says, leaning against the counter and giving him a once-over too.

He's cute – chubby-cheeked, gentle-eyed, a typical probie agent. Green, as Tony called it. Not usually her type, but she figures she can make an exception; the voice on the phone had been charmingly sweet.

"Hi," he chokes.

She smiles wider. If nothing else, she will spend the afternoon with him just for that priceless look of bewilderment he's got on right now. Because he ain't seen _nothin'_ yet.

* * *

It takes three pleasant lunches, two coffee runs, a walk around a park, and her offer in the lab to harbor him for the night before they go to her place. As with her appearance, he isn't sure what to expect her residence to be – behind her goth-dressing fetish, she has proven herself to be exceptionally warm, cheerful and well-adjusted, so her place could be anything from normal/boring to a Tim Burton set.

It turns out to be the latter – which only half-surprises him. She welcomes him in with gusto and starts making them drinks. He can only gape and stare open-mouthedly around him. She offers him a tour and he gulps down the drink, buzzing and curious and a little bit scared.

Turns out he has every right to be. She gets him a couple more drinks and disappears for a moment. He downs both drinks, the buzzing in his head now spreading to his toes like angry bees – and when he looks up again, she appears wearing a black robe, a spiked collar and a smile. In her hand she holds a pair of hand-cuffs. His eyes are Bambi-wide again; the grapefruit lump in his throat is back.

He rises to his feet and approaches her slowly. Their hands meet at the sash of her robe. The hand-cuffs are cold to the touch. Her grin goes wicked; his mouth meets hers, hard and sweet. She takes his hand, squeezes it tight, and leads him through the hinkiest night of his life.

When it's all over, and he lies there with her, high on alcohol and adrenaline and her, he's not sure he'd ever repeat the experience, but it's certainly not something he regrets doing. Which surprises him even more than what Abby had him do with the hand-cuffs last night.

* * *

Being assigned to Gibbs's team inspires much in Timothy McGee: pride, that he gets to continue his path to becoming a Special Agent under the guidance of NCIS's best; dread, that he will now be subject to Tony and Kate's teasing everyday; fear, that the job will be too difficult under Gibbs's gruff, demanding guidance; joy, that now he gets to see Abby much more often during the day. He tries to focus on the pride and the joy more than the dread and the fear, but the first few days of the job prove that dread and fear often trump the others.

Abby's lab becomes his safest haven very quickly. He's much better with computers than with field work – he was trained at MIT, after all – and being around Abby relaxes him. Her high energy and understanding of technology – something Gibbs and Tony have no patience for – is a relief. They hold a friendly, fast-paced banter and sometimes he goes back to her place with her. And, a couple of times, she goes back with him. They never do the hand-cuffs routine again – or anything quite like it – and he is grateful for it.

His experience is limited, so everything with Abby is new and exciting and different – even the little things, like her hand brushing against his when they walk, or her bone-crushing hugs, or the way she slurps Caff-Pow and hands it off to him without even thinking.

It's so good. Too good. He is light and happy and even kind of glowing when he's around her – and maybe that's why he should have been on his guard. Because it's always when the going is good that the going decides to go sour.

* * *

McGee's permanent assignment to the team is the proverbial straw. Technically, yes, this means Abby gets to see him more often – which she enjoys because she does genuinely like McGee. He takes Tony and Kate and Gibbs with quiet fumbling grace, and his obvious inexperience is cute to her – like a confused puppy that is still learning the house rules. She's never gone for a guy like him before, but she's glad she made the exception with him. She really likes him. Maybe even…l-words him.

And that's the problem, even before his assignment – that she l-words him. The l-word is a dangerous thing to slip into her mind's daily commentary. The l-word means happiness, sure, but it also means distraction. Means soppy foolishness, and possible commitment, and even the horror of potential pop songs playing in the lab instead of the usual death metal. People who l-word other people tend to do insane things like that, and she just can't handle it. She can't. It was never a problem before – she never got close to l-wording people as a rule – but now, she is in danger and something must be done.

It's actually lucky he got assigned to the team – because now she has a concrete reason to start backing away, putting the distance between them before the inevitable break-up. Gibbs has a rule about inter-office dating – Rule Twelve, to be exact – and she would rather run over a raccoon and eat it for breakfast before she broke one of Gibbs's rules, defied one of his expectations.

Gibbs is Gibbs. He supercedes all else. Even adorable Bambi-eyed probie agents whom she may or may not l-word. Gibbs and this lab and this job are her priority.

So at the poetry night, when McGee so sweetly tells her that he likes her and asks her where the relationship is going, she freezes in her spot like a child's tongue on metal in the dead of winter. He means well – she knows it, she does – but she kind of resents him for it. She tells him that it doesn't need to go anywhere, they can just enjoy what they have. Right after she says it, she knows in her heart of hearts that it's a cowardly answer she cobbled together on the spot just so she wouldn't leave him with an awful silence. But the thing is, he knows it too and he shuts off. She kind of resents him for that too and she's not quite sure why.

He drinks his espresso and drops her home, and part of her is happy because now at least there won't be that danger of commitment and distraction and horrid pop songs. But the rest of her is troubled. She hopes he breaks up with her instead of the other way around, so that she doesn't have to be the one to say the words that will need to be said.

She downplays the issue when she confides in Kate the next day, but the fact is, she's worried. More than she can say. This would all have been so much easier if McGee had smaller, less innocent eyes.

* * *

He's predictably – and understandably – snippy and agitated afterwards, but adorably so. She only has to wait a few hours before he apologizes. She wants to kiss him, but instead she distracts them both by informing him that he's insecure. It's true, but not entirely relevant until she makes it such. He defends himself hotly and she lets him, because he's so cute, all bothered like that.

He lets the little fight go, and that night, when he goes over, she takes him to the bed and settles in on top of him and refuses to budge until the first hints of sunlight intrude upon the room. He doesn't find out until morning, but he is blazingly alive and making love in a coffin whispering of death; the irony has always amused her, especially tonight. They do it several times, alternating between hot and fast and slow and hungry and violent and achingly sweet – and if he had more experience, he would have picked up, somewhere behind his sticky bliss, that this was her way of saying good-bye.

Not to him, but to their relationship as it is right now. He's a good person, and a surprisingly nimble, willing and occasionally adventurous lover, but this can't go on. It just can't. She kisses him on the cheek, chaste and affectionate, before heading to the shower.

* * *

She never says the words and he never asks, but by the next day at work, he can tell their romantic relationship is over. The words aren't necessary; somehow, they can both just sense it. The sex is over – but they spend the days and weeks following their last tryst with humor and hugs. The conversations don't really change much – and he is grateful for it. It side-steps the awkwardness and keeps them friends.

Surprisingly, he isn't bothered by just being her friend. Sure, he'll miss the sex, but he still gets to spend his time with her, still gets to make her laugh and smell her smell and take a sip or two of her Caff-Pow. They talk crop circles and blood splatters and physical evidence and all is well.

* * *

When Abby's stalker boyfriend, Michael, is on the loose, the only person more freaked out than Gibbs is McGee. Worrying about Tony or Ziva is second-nature to him by now, because of all the time they spend on the field with perverts and psychopaths, but he's never had to worry about Abby this way. Abby is fun and smart and constant, always in her lab, sucking down as much Caff-Pow as her systems will accept – she's never in any danger. It shakes him up significantly, when he remembers that she's mortal and that people can try to get her the way they do the field team who volunteers for such danger.

Gibbs tells him to keep Abby at his place, and he's grateful for the chance, because he is sure he would lose sleep worrying about her if she was somewhere else, out of his sight. He is happy to be the one protecting her, happy to do something useful for her.

She comes over with him that night and it's almost like old times; she knows where everything is and she makes herself at home at once. She disappears into the bathroom for five minutes and returns in one of her night-shirts, matching panties, and his own dress shirt. He's not sure why she's wearing that, but she looks good. Her hair is down and her face is clean of make-up; she looks less like a cartoon and more like a very pretty woman, and he likes that. He likes that she's relaxed enough to show him that side of her again – even if he himself is slightly nervous, now that she's in his apartment again and he remembers all this.

She smiles big and hums and puts on music and tells him to go change too. She is casual and comfortable, wandering around with her legs completely exposed, playing with his typewriter and his video games; so comfortable, in fact, that he has to wonder if it's lost on her, that he used to be her boyfriend and that they'd had sex in the next room a few times two years ago.

Either she has the memory of a goldfish or she's just really good at blustering through awkwardness, because she seems to be in her element. She teases him about the extra toothbrush and the J Lo Glow. She tells him, "We're adults, McGee, we can share the same bed." She upgrades his computer software for him. These are the ways she shows her love, and it takes a lot out of him to remain all professional and worthy of protective duty.

She convinces him to get her the toothbrush from the car, and of course by the time he returns, Abby is standing on the toilet ready to bash him in the face with a big white plastic something because she opened the door and Michael came in and scared the shit out of her. He is ready to explode through the roof, because she's impossible, she really is, and he can't believe that in five minutes he almost let her come to harm. Protecting her is so much harder than it should be.

He rips his dress shirt off of her, shoves the toothbrush into her hand, and tells her to brush up and then come to bed immediately. His tone is grim, his eyes serious this time. She picks up a pair of shorts from her bag and nods.

* * *

McGee calls Gibbs and reports what happens, and as predicted, Gibbs isn't thrilled that Abby was alone in the apartment, even for five minutes. He does, however, tell him to get Abby to write down the details of the evening so that she could write her statement tomorrow. He also tells him to lock the doors and not let Abby out of his sight. He agrees.

She writes up the incident in bed and lies awake a long time, unable to go to sleep. And since he is worried about her and can't sleep either, he leaves the lamp on all night and tries to entertain her. He fetches her books, takes her outside to play video games, offers her sleeping pills. She asks him if he's completely stupid, giving her sleeping pills when she drinks so much caffeine; it would wreck her equilibrium completely. He apologizes and offers her a box of cookies instead. She eats one, but leaves the rest untouched.

It's only out of exhaustion and desperation that he offers to give her a back-rub, so he's astonished when she agrees. She lies on her stomach and rests her cheek on the pillow and lets him dig the heels of his hands into her bones. He's no masseuse, and it's not actually all that relaxing, but the feel of his warm hands on her body, even if they are separated from her skin by her night-shirt, is enough to lull her to sleep within five minutes.

And he's not sure if it's the ex-boyfriend or the best friend that keeps running his hand up and down her back for hours afterward and falls asleep like that, her hair in his face, his snores in her shoulder.

* * *

Abby's rendition of Marilyn Monroe is almost worth having to work the odd hours the team has to work for their case. She is, quite literally, breath-taking – the blonde hair is pretty against her pale skin, and even though she wears mini-skirts and tight t-shirts to work all the time, something about seeing her in a dress, so white and flowing and feminine, is a sight that renders him stupid.

She notices him staring, of course, and she makes a joke about it, but secretly she's deeply flattered. She did not wear it to work with him in mind – it was just what she was wearing when she was called in – but she finds she is glad she did choose to be Marilyn for Halloween this year. Tony and Ziva gape like idiots too, and she enjoys their attention, but mostly she loves how McGee just can't keep his eyes off of her.

It's nice, sometimes, to be the princess of the castle, even if most other days she'd rather be the vampire.

* * *

When he wrote his book, with Amy Sutton falling in love with Agent MacGregor, he never thought he would have to answer for it. It started as kind of a joke, something that made him chuckle that he just threw in for the hell of it, but his fans enjoyed reading it, and he certainly enjoyed writing it, reliving the memories that inspired it, so he kept it going. It was just a fantasy sort of thing, the stuff of fiction – nothing more. _He _knows that. The fact is, though, that other people often don't – particularly the people who serve as inspiration – so he always kept it to himself, knowing he would die if Abby ever found out.

So it only adds to the nightmare their case becomes when he realizes that it's all based on his book. It's bad enough that Tony and Ziva and Ducky and Gibbs and Palmer get to add their two cents – Tony and Ziva in particular are unhappy with him, because he got the hint faster than they did and stuck them in a relationship against their will and outside their knowledge – but Abby is the one he is truly worried about.

They never talk about lovey-dovey things, or reminisce fondly about their relationship, when they are together. It's been three years and they have a good thing going, with their jokes and their working and the familiar environment of her lab. He likes where they are, he honestly does. So he doesn't want to ruin it with his idle ha-ha-funny fantasy scenario, and make things awkward. He isn't sure he could stand coming to work in the morning if he knew things would be awkward with Abby.

So when he is forced to tell Langdon that MacGregor and Amy get married in the book, he can feel himself wanting to drown in ice water on the inside, knowing that she's listening. It's the only way to call off this psycho, and he knows it, so he does what is necessary, but the blistering embarrassment is still obvious in him when the man is lead out in cuffs.

"Agent MacGregor and Amy can't get married in the end, they are all wrong for each other." That's what she says, with this wild, pained look on her face, and he isn't sure what to make of it – of the words or the way she said them. She hurries away in her nightgown after Gibbs, giving him no time to analyze any intent, but he thinks on it a while before he gets any sleep that night.

Was it conviction or desperation that made her say it? He tries to pretend he doesn't care either way, because she's his friend and everything, but the little voice that calls itself his conscience chastises him for lying, for not admitting to himself that he hopes it's the latter.

* * *

One day, on an impulse, she tells him she loves him like she loves puppies. She also tells him that's a good thing – she loves puppies – but he still finds himself hurt that he is on the same level as puppies.

Puppies are full of heart and warmth, sure, and they're cuddly and generally well-loved, but the most they will ever be is best friends. And that's great – being best friends is great – but it's weird, because that thrills him less than it usually does.

He tries to tell himself he doesn't want to be on the same level as puppies because they are hard to housetrain, don't speak English, and have brains half the size of humans, yet somehow it's the best friend thing that lingers. And he's not entirely sure – or all that willing to know – why that is.

* * *

It is nothing but deep, deep affection for Abby that gets McGee to grudgingly drag Jethro the Dog home after work. He barks loud, drools much, and smells rancid – but Abby would never forgive McGee for not taking good care of him. And, honestly, McGee's a little afraid of Abby when she gets that angry – she's a forensics expert after all, with experience in poison and bullets, and it would just be better to do what she says and stay on her good side. Even if Jethro keeps him up all night and almost destroys his computer systems.

He puts up with the dog for a few long weeks, buys it food and a couple of toys and a cage so that he doesn't destroy the apartment. Thankfully, Jethro – like his namesake – gets better with time, not growling or jumping around so much. There are even moments when McGee actually finds himself liking Jethro, curling up with him on the couch while watching TV, Jethro's head on his lap, his hands stroking his side.

Abby asks sometimes, how Jethro is, and McGee always truthfully says he's fine. Until the day in the fall when Jethro starts whining and his eyes go yellow and his fine hairs start falling out all over McGee's couch. McGee takes him to the vet, who says he's deathly ill. He's only got a few days, if that. The vet asks if McGee would like to put him down or keep him around until the end.

He chooses to keep Jethro, because he knows Abby would slay him alive if he killed Jethro, or if he didn't tell her what happened. So he calls her that night and tells her the news, and within ten minutes, she is at his house and hugging Jethro and looking at him so big-eyed and sad that the dog could have been family. She sleeps over on the couch holding the dog tight against her chest, all but ignoring McGee.

It turns out that Jethro dies in Abby's arms that night. McGee wakes up to find her putting the limp dog's corpse into the cage. The two take off of work that morning and Abby borrows gardening equipment from a friend to dig Jethro a grave in the park. McGee knows better than to ask if this is legal, but no one bothers them anyway.

She says a few words over the dog's grave, then goes to pick flowers from nearby gardens. He wants to let her do this alone – he doesn't want to have to answer dirty looks or angry questions – but she won't hear of it. So he follows her around as she gets a good bouquet set up, and then he lays it over Jethro's grave with her.

In a funny way, he'll miss the damn dog too, but Abby is quiet all day, wearing more black than usual, mourning. McGee explains the situation to Tony and Ziva and the three of them give her the distance, and they don't make any remarks about the dirge she plays in honor of Jethro.

That evening, before they go home, Abby comes upstairs to say good-night. Tony and Ziva leave, and Abby hugs McGee hard and tight, her pigtails brushing against his Adam's apple.

"Thanks for taking good care of him," she says.

And it's worth losing his collection of DVD's to Jethro's claws and slobber to hear her say that.

* * *

Director Vance separates the team that horrible summer and sends McGee to the basement. He misses the team like crazy – even DiNozzo – but it's Abby who takes all of this the hardest.

He goes out to lunch with her a few times a week – as often as he can wangle it – and the conversation flows as usual, but Abby is so agitated, not having things be the same. She talks endlessly about missing the team, and tells and retells him the stories Tony and Ziva told her about through phone and email. Sometimes she talks work, but mostly she talks about them and she gets so flustered that he worries she's going to have a panic attack.

On one such day, his hand squeezes her hand and he tells her to calm down. Tony and Ziva are fine and the team will be back together soon. She tells him soon isn't soon enough, and goes into another one of her feverish rants.

Impatience and impulse take over for him then, and he ends up slapping her sharply on the cheek. They are both so surprised that they just stare at each other for a few seconds, blinking fast with their mouths hanging open.

"I'm sorry, Abbs, I'm really, really sorry," he begins to babble, terrified that she'll poison his coffee or just throw him under a moving bus, because he's never ever hit her like that before and he honestly can't believe he just did.

But she isn't mad. To his astonishment, her eyes soften down to practically nothing and she says, "I'm so glad I still have you, Tim. I would have lost my mind if I didn't."

Her cheek all raw and pink, she stands up and leans over the table to give him a kiss on the cheek. His cheek is a purplish black the color of a bruise the rest of the day.

* * *

The morning Tony and McGee are ready to leave for the desert and get Ziva back from Saleem's camp, Abby comes crashing through desks and wires and agents in order to say good-bye before they board the jet. Her hair is wild and spilling out of her pig-tails. She falls into Gibbs's arms first, telling him, "Please, please, please bring them all back home safe." He assures her that he will and she hugs him so tight she must have broken a rib or two, but Gibbs takes it in stride, his hand rubbing her back.

Next, she collapses on Tony, telling him to be safe and come back home in one piece. He cracks a movie reference that McGee doesn't understand but Abby does; she throws her arms around his neck all over again and tells him to take care of Gibbs and McGee or he'll have to answer to her. He, too, takes her in stride and assures her they'll be fine.

McGee is the last one she hugs. Gibbs is getting a little impatient now – the jet has to leave – but Abby buries her face into McGee's neck and tells him, "You have to come back home to me, okay?"

"Of course," he says, but she just hugs him tighter. Her perfume is overwhelming, almost chokes him. Her obvious distress is such that he wants nothing more than to stay here with her and comfort her, but he has to go, Gibbs and Tony are heading for the elevators, and Ziva could be dead for all they know.

Abby finally lets go and waves tearfully as the elevator doors close. She's always been the brave military wife to their danger-bent team, and it's hard for her to see them go, not knowing if this is the last time – and it's hard for them to leave her, since they know as little about the future as she does.

But the jet is waiting and it's time to go. McGee boards behind Tony, glancing back one last time at the building, and hopes Ducky will keep Abby going until they return home.

* * *

Men have flirted with Abby before. She is pretty, she is bubbly – of course she's been the subject of favorable male attention since his relationship with her dissolved. But there's something about Alejandro that makes his skin tight, makes him irritable and prickly and just generally on edge. He plays nice, charms her in all the right ways, but there's something oily, sleazy, about his manner. Like there's something ugly lurking behind his too-white teeth.

When Vance had arrived on their floor to tell them about the invitation to Mexico, Tony looked like he wanted to go, but McGee had volunteered more quickly. And he's relieved that he got the job, because at least now he'll be able to keep an eye on her and on Alejandro, instead of worrying at home and trying to pick up hints from the conversations with her escorting agent. Abby makes it clear she's less than thrilled that he is her escort – she insists that he is boring and that traveling with him would not be fun – but he is willing to put up with her mood to ensure there is no funny business.

NCIS is not kind enough to give them first class on the plane, but the arrangements are good enough. He graciously puts her bag up in the overhead compartment for her and lets her have the window seat. He settles in next to her and pulls out his iPod and headphones. She asks the stewardess for a pillow and tries to get comfortable. It's a sizeable flight, and she needs something to do besides talk to McGee after all.

* * *

About three quarters into the flight, an increasingly restless and half-conscious Abby has come to the end of her patience with the barely-reclining seat, the too-flat pillow, the uncomfortable angle of the wall against her head, the lack of space for her long limbs. McGee fell asleep twenty minutes into the flight and has stayed in his upright position since then, his face peaceful. She is at a loss to explain how he managed this – which only frustrates her more.

She decides she needs to cuddle Bert the Hippo in order to get through this flight, but her bag is in the overhead compartment overeager McGee put it in at the beginning of the flight, and he is sitting in the aisle seat. And he looks so relaxed, sitting there with his pillow neatly behind his head, so she doesn't want to wake him up and make him get it for her. She'll just have to find a creative way to climb over him and get the bag.

She takes off her seatbelt and rises to a squat, trying to gauge how to get her leg over him. He is sitting upright and still, his tray table in, so there's a little bit of room if she squeezes. Gingerly, she puts one boot over his lap and into the aisle, straddling his legs with the back of her mini-skirt squarely in front of his face. She can feel him breathing against the material, but she holds her breath and tries not to make any sudden movements, praying that he doesn't choose this moment to wake up and open his eyes.

She gets a good handle on her foot in the aisle, so she hoists herself over him and tries to get the other foot over too. Her knee collides with his shin as she topples out into the aisle. His brow furrows, and he fidgets a little, grunts softly, as if something is bothering him. She freezes, watching him closely, but fortunately he settles back into his peaceful expression and his breathing slows to its previous pattern. She plucks her hippo out of the bag and holds him tight as she tries to figure out how to now get back to her seat.

She puts one foot over his legs and into her foot space, straddling him again as she gets the other foot over too, but this time she chooses to climb over with her face in his rather than her rear end, so that if he does wake, all he'll see are the green tints of her irises before she moves aside.

* * *

It takes McGee until the "ten minutes to go" announcement to wake up with a start and find his first sight to be the parting of Abby's ink-black pigtails, his first scent to be Abby's shampoo. It's something vaguely floral – which surprises him because Abby really doesn't remind him of flowers at all. The shift of his body as he jumps with astonishment at her body draped over his side wakes her too, and she sits up, disheveled and confused, the imprint of his jacket like a tattoo on her cheek.

The Mexican sun is fierce and dazzling through the airplane window as the plane descends to the ground. Abby, still half-asleep, is holding her hippo, who farts as she squeezes him. By the looks of the disgruntled passengers around him, Bert has been doing that for some time now. McGee isn't sure when Bert came down or when Abby began to get sleepy or when her cheek found his shoulder, but apparently that's the way it happened.

The wheels of their airplane touch down on Earth, and as seatbelts unbuckle and McGee gets their bags and starts preparing to leave the plane, the elderly woman to their right clears her throat and snaps, "Sir, for future flights, please do _not _let your girlfriend pack that infernal toy. It has kept me awake for the past hour."

McGee flushes red. "I'm sorry, ma'am. It won't happen again."

The woman rolls her eyes and cuts McGee off to exit first. He turns around in time to see Abby throw her head back and laugh, her hippo still tight against her chest. Their eyes meet and he gives her a Look. She just beams at him, but it doesn't escape his notice that her pale cheeks have some newfound color on them too – a healthy baby pink.

* * *

That night in the hotel room, they disguise their awkwardness in case talk, but both of them are fully aware that yet again, they are stuck in the same room together, sharing a bed. And, like the last time, McGee offers to let her take the bed, saying he'll take the couch.

She is both charmed and irritated by his attempted gallantry. "Come on, McGee, it's not like we haven't shared a bed before."

He reminds her it was a coffin and then makes an excuse about his back. In fact, he has a point – that bed will not comfortably fit both of them even if they tried – but there's something about the way he looks at her when he says it that captures her attention. She pretends it's nothing, though, and the conversation limps along – until, of course, he makes an awkward joke and then tries to turn it into awkward compliments and he trips over his words and he's no better than a twelve-year-old boy with zero experience.

She tells him she's leaving to sleep on the lab table because he forgot to use bottled water to brush his teeth, but as she pads downstairs with her stuff in hand, she knows that really, she has no idea why she's leaving.

She likes McGee, she really does – she always has – but lately, he's just been so awkward, particularly with the Alejandro situation. They have spent a lot of time together today, with the flight and the class and everything, and something squirming and uncomfortable awakens in her stomach when she's around him. Something she can't explain and doesn't want to examine right now, because she's got this cold case thing she has to take care of and she's just, she's busy and she can't deal with McGee. He will have to wait until they get back to Washington to get her attention.

The lab table is cold and hard and sleeping on it will be almost as bad as trying to sleep on that damn plane, but it's better than listening to McGee babble awkwardly – or retch.

* * *

The day Dr. Rachel Cranston decides to ride with McGee to the suspect's house and do her psychological evaluation with him on the way, he internally groans. There's no way he wants to get into this; she seems nice enough as a person, and he certainly does his best to be polite, but he finds it all very nerve-wracking. He's not sure what to say, what she wants to hear.

She's kind, navigating the topics lightly and skillfully, seeming to sense his discomfort. But then she gets to the part about women and though he keeps driving and his expression remains neutral, he's constricted and uncomfortable inside.

"Maybe you're looking too hard," she suggests when talking about his unsuccessful hunt for a woman. There's a slightly mischievous twinkle in her eye as she says it that makes him sorry he chose that moment to glance briefly at her.

The rest of the interview goes smoothly enough, and the case progresses forward through the day, but that night as McGee goes to bed, mentally reviewing the events of his day as he falls asleep, he finds himself dwelling rather unnecessarily on Dr. Cranston's remark.

"Maybe you're looking too hard." What could she have meant by that? He doesn't communicate much with women on a day to day basis. The only two constant women in his life right now are Ziva and Abby – and Ziva, she's just a good friend, always has been. True, he would go to the ends of the Earth for her – and in a way he already did – but he's never felt anything remotely romantic for her. Not even close.

And Abby…well, he doesn't really feel that way for Abby either. Maybe he did once, when he first met her seven years ago and they had that brief, ill-fated romance, but not now. She is in many ways one of the best friends he's ever had, and he feels comfortable around her in a way he doesn't feel around a lot of people. They are like two blades of grass brushing together in the wind – natural, sweet. Yes, they tease each other and laugh a lot, and yes, they hug a lot and kiss each other on the cheek, but she does that with everyone on the team – it's not exclusive to him.

Sure, there are moments that are a little awkward sometimes – there are moments that remind him of the time when he was crazy about her and being near her was a gift – but those moments are not abnormal, considering their past history and the fact that she's a woman and he's a man.

What _is _abnormal, though, is that he felt the need to justify all this to himself in the first place – hotly and automatically defending his friendship with Abby when Dr. Cranston had never even suggested any names.

* * *

The night they lose Mike Franks to the cruel, indifferent shadow of Death, it is as though someone has filled his body up with oil and cooked his insides until they were black ash. It's true, people die everyday, and Franks is not the first NCIS agent to lose his life, but somehow it is almost impossible to believe that this man, this legend so adept at dodging bullets and pulling himself back from the brink of disaster, no longer wanders this Earth.

He does what he's supposed to do on auto-pilot – helps Tony with the evidence, the photos, everything – and when they have everything ready to take down to Abby, McGee is the one who volunteers to take it all down. So, armed with the box of evidence bags, he enters the lab, curious and wary about what he might find.

In fact, he walks in the lab and he almost thinks he's got the wrong room, because there's no music on. The only sound he hears is his own shuffling feet, his own breathing. He enters the lab and sets the box down on the table and finds Abby sitting on her stool, staring at the floor.

"McGee." She looks up and sees him and in the space between seconds, she is in his arms, hugging him tight.

"McGee, this can't be happening," she mumbles into his shoulder. "Mike can't be dead."

"I'm so sorry." There's nothing else to tell her, so he just brings her in even closer, his one hand on the small of her back and the other stroking her pigtails. "I'm so, so sorry, Abbs."

She stays in his shoulder a long time, her breath hot and a little wet against his shirt, but he holds her there for as long as she lets him, breathing in her scent and rejoicing in her warmth, trying to understand himself how Mike can be dead, how life can go on without his presence in the background somewhere.

When at last she brings her face out of his shoulder, he looks her in the eye and is surprised to find that while shiny, hers are dry. There is no tear residue on her cheek either. She is shocked and grieving, but she hasn't cried. Through his own shock and grief, he is surprised by this.

She gets to work bringing out the evidence bags and setting them out on the table, and he moves forward to help her, wondering about this expression of emotion. Abby is such a profoundly emotional creature, always frenzied and excitable and passionate, so easily worked up about little things that it's easy to assume she is a crier, with lake-size reservoirs of tears. But then he thinks about it a little harder and he realizes that in his seven bumpy years of knowing Abigail Sciuto, he has never once seen her cry.

Effusive and quirky as she is, ranting and typing and dancing in her lab all day, every day, she is strong. She has a tough skin. She has to, because while she is here, the people she loves are out in the field risking their lives every day, and if she cried every time someone got hurt or the danger was great, the building would be flooded.

She is their military wife, and though she has an overflowing heart, she doesn't cry. She gets the evidence together and gets to work.

And as he watches her blow her nose into patterned Kleenex, his own raw insides bruised and sore from tonight, he lets himself just love her for asking him where her CD player's remote is.

* * *

"How's Gibbs doing?" she asks him later that night, as they wait for the blood analysis to finish.

"Hard to say. He was in Autopsy when I left him."

"Do you think he's still here?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

She exhales slow, like a deflating balloon. "I hope he's okay."

"He'll be fine. We're all pretty shaken up."

"I know. Where are Tony and Ziva?"

"I think they were finishing up the scene."

She nods and goes silent. The machine beeps then, indicating that the blood analysis is ready. But she ignores it and leans against the table, chewing on her lower lip.

"I need to find Gibbs, McGee."

"I'll come up with you. See if Tony or Ziva needs help with anything."

The two of them slip out of the lab together; Abby presses the button to call the elevator. They stand there together in front of the metal doors, waiting.

"Hey, McGee?"

"Yeah, Abbs?"

She sighs. "I'm going to miss him."

His throat is all clogged-up and achy at that. "I am too."

She makes a noise a lot like a sob, and once again, her arms are around him and he envelops her, his face in her neck like hers is in his, their noses against the other's collarbone.

But as he holds her, the elevator dings and they separate to get in, only to find Tony and Ziva already there – Tony, looking stricken, and Ziva, with her hair messy and her eyes so uncharacteristically vulnerable, red, swollen. His arm is around her and she is curled up into him, just as Abby is curled up into McGee.

"Bring it in," Tony says softly, and the two pairs open arms and become a square, their hard foreheads all touching, arms tangled up together, as the elevator closes them in and goes up.

* * *

Autumn is coming close – there's a nip in the air. Most people would think he's crazy for thinking of fall when it's still August, but McGee can't help it. Tonight, it just feels more like autumn than summer.

He makes himself a bowl of tomato soup and drinks it over late-night TV. It's a Friday night, but he spends it as he spends many other nights – alone, curled up on his couch with something to eat, letting his thoughts wander. Most nights, he is grateful for the quiet; his day is so full of death and talking and investigating that it's nice to get some time for himself.

Tonight errs on the lonelier side, though. He feels both young and old at the same time – old, because he knows he is in his mid-thirties, but young, because this familiar scene takes him back to earlier nights sitting alone, assuring himself that he would find a girl soon and he would get married and everything would kind of fall into place.

He told himself he would get married by thirty-five – but so far, that goal seems pretty out-of-reach. Which depresses him more than he can say.

It's frustrating, being in the same place relationship-wise tonight as he was ten years ago. The days and the years are piling up on each other, one after the other, like pearls on a string, and he has to wonder how long he can go on this way. How long he can sit on the couch with tomato soup and pretend this is satisfying enough.

* * *

Two forty-eight AM on Christmas Eve, with the snow outside and the cheerful Christmas lights glowing, Tim McGee and Abby Sciuto are still standing around in the lab, yawning and reaching for their Caff-Pows.

The case is an exceptionally difficult one; at around ten, when the rest of the team started edging out towards the elevators to go home, Abby announced she was going to pull an all-nighter and work on extracting data out of the fried and highly encrypted hard-drive they found at a suspect's home. McGee, in a fit of valor, decided he would stay behind and help her, keep her company. Tony and Ziva fled before they were asked to stay too, which left Abby and McGee in the lab alone together. Abby confesses that the only reason she's staying tonight is so that she can finish the case and at least get Christmas Day to herself.

She yawns over the scorched piece of machinery sitting on the table, but continues on with the rant she has been elaborating upon for the past hour and a half.

"So, I mean, you'd think that a guy would have more manners, but no, in fact he does not," she says. "After romancing me at a viewing of _The Rocky Horror Picture Show_, he runs off to California with Grocery Store Guy. I mean, what a chump! Not only was he taken, he was gay! And he still led me on! I mean, who does that?"

"I'm sorry, Abby," he drones through a yawn.

"McGee, are you even listening to me?" Her eyes flash danger. "You have been saying, 'I'm sorry, Abby' in succession to everything I've said to you tonight!"

"Because I _am_ sorry, Abby. The guy's a jerk."

"I think I hate him almost as much as I hate mislabeled evidence," she declares. "I mean, I could sense there was something hinky going on when he said he wanted to go to the _Rocky Horror Picture Show_, but I didn't know it would be _that_ hinky."

McGee nods tiredly and steps in front of the computer, deciding to take another crack at the irretrievable material.

"It's just, it's frustrating, you know?" she says. "It's like, all the good ones are either gay or taken – or both! There's no winning with guys!"

"I'm neither."

Her expressive dark eyebrows arch defiantly. "Excuse me?"

His gaze goes from the computer to Abby's face, to the hands that are now on her hips. "I said that I'm neither."

"Neither what?"

"Neither gay or taken."

"Are you insinuating that you're one of the good ones?"

He shrugs. "Well, I can remember a time when you agreed."

She smirks. "Me too."

A pause. Then—

"And maybe I still do."

He blinks and whips around to look at her. "What?"

"You heard me," she says slyly.

"No, I didn't," he says. "I was distracted, I'm sorry. What did you say?"

She sighs. "I said maybe I still do."

"Do what?"

"Agree."

"To?"

"To you being one of the good ones, McGee!" She throws her hands up in the air in frustration. "Geez, you make it hard even to compliment you."

"I'm sorry. It's just, my brain is totally fried after working with this stupid computer all night."

"I know. It's the only reason why I forgive you."

"Thanks, Abbs," he says flatly, yawning again.

"No problem, Timmy." She grins at him and then pushes him aside to take another crack at the computer herself. McGee pulls up the stool next to her and plops down on it, watching as her lightning-fast fingers dance all over the keyboard, her expression crumpled in concentration. It's nice, seeing her so focused and working, watching all the multi-colored windows flicker around the computer monitor, listening to the music around them. He watches her for several minutes, drinking in the sight of her, idly going over the brief conversation they'd just had.

It's a vulnerable kind of night, with the late hour and the exhaustion and the falling snow and Christmas light reflections visible through the bullet-resistant glass of the lab window. The Caff-Pow McGee drank out of necessity to stay awake is giving the world a surreal edge tonight, loosening his tongue and making his head buzz.

Later, he will blame this effect of caffeine on his system – he's not built to drink so much in one go – for the resulting conversation. But within the moment, he doesn't think about motive or sense or reason.

He just clears his throat in the silence and asks, "If I'm one of the good ones, why did we stop going out?"

Something in her freezes cold, like she did the last time he asked her about their relationship's status back at that poetry night seven years ago. She turns on her heel so that her whole body faces him, so that he can feel the full effect of her staring eyes.

"What do you mean?" she asks a little too quickly.

"I mean exactly what I said," he tells her, soft around the edges tonight. "Why'd we stop going out if I was one of the good ones?"

She sighs heavily. "McGee, are we really going to do this? It's late, and I'm tired, and you're tired too."

"It's just a simple question."

"Yeah, maybe, but the answer isn't simple." She chews on her lip, crosses her arms, uncrosses her arms.

He just shrugs. "It's okay. You can be honest."

"It's not that I'm trying to protect you from anything, Tim…it's just, there's a lot of reasons why we stopped going out," she says. "Like…like the fact that Gibbs has a rule about it, and it would be treachery to break said rule. I mean, Gibbs's rules are law and if you break the law bad things happen to you, so I don't, you know, want to get on the wrong side of that. And anyway, we're good as friends. Sex makes things complicated and awkward and I'd rather we not be awkward. Because I like you and I don't want to have to feel bad about working late, or telling you stories about losers who dump me for other men, or not being a good girlfriend."

Her eyes are construction drills, boring into his relentlessly. "Does that answer your question, McGee?"

He blinks a few times, unsure of how to handle the blazing look she's currently got fixed on him like a laser. "Yes, it does answer my question."

"Good. Because I really don't want to talk about this again," she says, now mercifully returning to her keyboard and her typing. "I mean, this is awkward conversation about ancient history. I've indulged you, because I'm tired and don't feel like arguing with you, so please get it out of your system now so we can move on and never ever discuss it."

"Okay…" He hesitates a moment, eyes still on her.

"Is it out of your system yet?"

"Um…not quite yet."

"Then hurry up, because I want it out of mine too. Like, pronto."

"Okay, okay," he says. "I just…I have one last question. Only one."

"Promise?"

"Promise. Last question."

"Fine. Shoot."

"Are you sure that…well, that you didn't break up with me because of something I did? Because of me asking you about the relationship status, or something like that?"

"No," she says, long and heavy, her eyes glittering in the dim lighting of the lab. "It wasn't you. It was me! It's always me."

"It can't _always _be you."

"Yes, it can – and it is," she says. "It's usually because of how much I work. I mean, people are freaked that I'll come in at any time Gibbs asks me to – even if I'm doing something, or it's four in the morning, or there's a hurricane outside. I keep long hours, and that's not usually good for a relationship. Eventually I'm told that I don't pay enough attention, and when I am around, I ramble about stuff and never focus on a good, normal conversation – which, I mean, is ridiculous because I don't ramble _that_ much. I mean, I _do_ focus. I love to focus. Focus is great. Focus is fantastic. Focus is—"

"Abby?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry! See, this is how it goes with me. I work too much, and I talk too much. That's probably why Victor dumped me for that Grocery Store Guy."

"No. Victor dumped you because he's a dirtbag."

"That's very sweet, Tim, but you don't need to shield me from the truth." She closes her eyes and takes a long, elaborate breath. "I have come to terms with the fact that I am happily married to my lab and my work. It's the way things are, and I'm okay with that."

She nods a little to him but mostly to herself as she resumes typing on the keyboard, now trying to see if she can break the firewall on the data she has already retrieved. Her shoulders are curled inward a little, as though protecting her, shielding her, informing him without words that this conversation is over and it's all strictly business between them again.

He allows her keys to clicketty-clack through the silence, as he remains sitting on her stool and watching her type.

But then he clears his throat to get her attention and says, "Abbs…it's not cheating on work, if you decide you want to spend some time with another person. I mean…the lab won't mind, if you're not here every late night."

"Please don't do this to me right now, McGee," she pleads. "Seriously. I'm begging you. It's nice that you care so much, really it is, don't get me wrong – but I can't. I need to work. I need to crack this algorithm. I'm sorry."

She continues to type furiously. Snow still floats to the ground, light and feather-soft, and coats the grass just visible from the window. Her lips are pursed and her body language is informing him that currently she is a stone wall and he'll be a squished bug if he continues to badger her, but something about the night and the tiredness and the way she said she might agree that he's one of the good ones – it makes him brave. Makes him bold. Makes him kind of stupid and reckless.

"I mean, I understand that you don't want to break rule twelve, because if given a choice I'd rather avoid Gibbs's wrath too," he says. "But…I don't know, I guess I'm just trying to say that all those other things, like the working a lot and the talking and the expectations – they shouldn't be the reasons you avoid me. Rule twelve should be the only reason. You know?"

Her eyes remain fixed on the screen, but her fingers trail off the keyboard. The lab is silent save for the music. She swallows thickly.

"Why did you tell me all that?" she asks.

"Because…it's true."

"I'm serious. What brought this on?"

He yawns as he considers. "I don't know. I guess…well…it was your story about that dirtbag Victor. It reminds me of my dirtbags. Which reminds me of how…"

"How what?" She says it softer than rose petals.

"How it only ever even halfway worked out for me with you," he admits.

"Aww, Tim." Her smile is wry and affectionate. "You're such a little McRomeo."

He wrinkles his nose. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

"I'm pretty sure Tony's used that one on me before."

"Was it ever in this context?"

"…No."

"Then it doesn't count."

He still looks vaguely confused and irritated, but she is beaming now, bright as the streetlamps in the dark outside. She steps away from the computer and approaches him, her hands deep in the pockets of her lab coat. His heart rate accelerates significantly, but he keeps his eyes on her the whole time, refusing to drop his gaze even for a second.

She stops, stands with her nose just inches from his, so close that he is sure she can hear his galloping heart. And then she comes even closer, so that their noses touch. The moment stretches out before them like a red carpet. He thinks she is about to kiss him, but he can't be sure if it'll be on his mouth or on his cheek. With her, it could always be either.

He ends up being half-right though – she comes in, hardly daring to breathe, and kisses him gently right at the corner of his lower lip. Then she pulls away and his eyes are so wide and sweet, and she gets a brief glimpse of the Bambi-eyed probie agent he used to be, that she once dated.

Of course, he's not that same man anymore. The intervening years have forced him to grow up, mature into a confident, competent young agent. And she likes that about him, likes that he's not the same, but better.

She takes a deep breath, and then looks away, flustered and awkward. McGee is still standing there with his mouth absently hanging open, his expression more appropriate to being hit on the head with a baseball bat. It's almost a blessing that the music is on, otherwise the air would have been very thick, uncomfortable.

A few seconds more, and McGee seems to return to Earth, clears his throat. Abby's eyes snap onto him and refuse to let go, but he just steps in front of the computer, starts taking another try at decrypting the hard-drive. The familiar sound of the keys brings Abby back to Earth too, and she stands behind him, watching his progress. The scent of her is strong in his nose.

He keeps typing. She throws her arms around him and rests her chin on his shoulder, still watching, her weight sagging onto him, letting him support her. He lets her, inwardly pleased, and the two of them work like four-armed Siamese twins in complete silence.

* * *

It started with a voice on the phone and a conversation with Tony about tattoos on buttocks, but it soars later that morning, when the two of them finally crack the algorithm on the laptop and basically solve the case because of it. She whoops and high-fives him, and then she falls on him in a hug, one that he returns just as tightly.

It's about six thirty in the morning, and Abby leaves a note for Gibbs on her computer screen, so that he knows what they've done when he arrives. Then Abby announces she needs a nap, and pulls up the mattress and the pillows from the ballistics lab.

McGee disappears upstairs and returns a few minutes later with blankets. She grabs them from him and plops down on the mattress, seizes his hand and pulls him down with her. They collapse in a heap on the material, and she pulls the blanket in on top of them, her smile radiant.

His eyes are questioning, so she whispers in his ear, "What Gibbs doesn't know yet won't hurt him…or us."

His chuckle is low and sweet as he lays his head back on the pillow and she cuddles up on his side, their legs tangled up together. His arm snakes around her waist, pulls her in, the weight of his hand on her side.

With uncharacteristic shyness, she closes her eyes and gently picks up his hand, leads it under the material of her shirt to the heat of her bare flesh. His breath visibly hitches, but she interlaces her fingers with his in there, squeezes tight. He can feel the echoes of her beating heart just beyond the skin. It calms and excites and elates him, that feeling.

And just like that, they fall asleep as the pre-Christmas sun rises steadily outside, holding hands, limbs splayed all over the mattress and each other, as lost in each other as Alice in wonderland.

* * *

Tony is the first to enter the lab at eight in the morning and find them together, sleeping soundly on the same mattress. He immediately calls Ziva to share the discovery and the two of them stand over McGee and Abby, exchanging amused glances.

"Well, if it isn't McAbby," snorts Tony.

"McAbby?"

"Yeah," he says. "You know, like when you put their names together because they're a couple."

"Oh – like Brangelina, yes?"

"Yup."

Ziva smirks. "So…McAbby."

"Think we should wake them up and tell them their new name?"

"No, let them rest. I am sure they were up late into the night working on that hard-drive."

"What if Gibbs finds them?"

"Good point." She considers. "Let's give them ten minutes."

"Fair enough. Then it's no mercy."

And Ziva just rolls her eyes.

* * *

A/N: And there it is, my first McAbby story! I know, I know, it was kind of crazy and long, but I hope you liked it, and that you will pretty please remember to review before you exit the browser. I need to know if this bizarre-o experiment was a success or complete failure.

Cheers, and thanks!


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